Del, I've sold on eBay for many years now and not really had any problems, but I have heard some horror stories from friends
Basically don't have anything to do with Escrow, it can be really dodgy, if you don't know, it's where when you've sold an expensive item, it's a bit like a middle man, the item goes to the middle man and then so does the buyers payment, when they have both and the funds are cleared the item is released to the buyer and the seller is paid. Paypal can remove funds even after clearing if there is a sniff of fraud, so an Escrow can stop this happening. Unfortunately for my mate Mickey, he sold a laptop abroad, decided to use an Escrow company as he wasn't quite sure whether payment would clear even after he had recieved it, the buyer supposedly sent payment to a Escrow, Mickey sent the (then) very expensive laptop to the same Escrow and then never recieved payment. The reason? the Escrow company was fake set up by the buyer himself. oh dear.
oh, don't sell to anyone in Nigeria or Russia, major fraudsters live there
if you have Paypal account, I wouldn't use it for payment, it'll strip major spondooleys off your selling price, if someone really wants your item, they'll be happy to wait for their cheque to clear, before you ship the item, or come and pick it up and pay cash.
Paypal is actually the Devil dressed as Dick Turpin with a server. It's an eBay company so in reality they are proper skimming the gravy twice, once for selling fees then once again for you to accept Paypal.
Also if the payment from your buyer comes from a their Paypal account balance (ie they've been selling stuff) and not from their debit/credit card or bank account, there isn't even a proper transaction as it's all 'in house', they aren't actualy doing anything to charge a fee for.
If you do decide to use Paypal and are prepared to accept their charges, add 'immediate payment required' this stops some **** clicking Buy it now when they're ******, ending your auction, then waking up in the morning and thinking '****, what have I bought? I'll just not pay for it', you then have to set the auction away again, more hassle, with immeadiate the auction only ends if they click BIN and then pay for it within a short allotted time.
if you have a idea what you want for the item and think someone will go for it, add a Buy-it-Now, it gets the item sold quick and for an acceptable price, I think it's only a few pence to add it to your selling page.
If you think it's a specialist bit of kit and there may be only a few folk wanting it, don't set your start price too low or someone will be walking away with your nice kit or 99p, set reserve if you think this may happen.
make sure you put the item in the most appropriate category,some folk just browse categories rather than doing a search for a particular thing.
errr rant over
hope it sells well Del
